The Internet facsimile system is known. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 6,094,277 issued Jul. 25, 2000 to Toyoda et al. discloses an Internet facsimile system which changes the image data into corresponding mail data for transmission over the Internet. The Internet mail typically uses the SMTP (simple mail transfer protocol). According to this protocol, the communication terminal accesses a mail server at a regular interval, and retrieves mail directed to the particular communication terminal by matching the user name and password with the data stored in the mail server. The communication terminal typically consists of a personal computer or workstation, and such a terminal can retrieve the entire mail and display it on the monitor as it is normally equipped with a mass storage device such as a hard disk.
On the other hand, an Internet facsimile machine is not normally equipped with any such mass storage devices or large memory. Because the retrieved mail data is simply printed on paper concurrently with retrieving mail data from the mail server, there is no need to store any large amount of mail data under normal circumstances. However, if the printer should fail, the facsimile machine would not be able to retrieve mail data from the mail server, and any further receipt of mail or image data would be made impossible.